UAW addresses Daimler workers in North Carolina with strike imminent

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain will address over 7,000 Daimler workers Friday at 10 p.m., just hours before their contract expires. 

The address, which will be hosted on Facebook Live, comes after a month of negotiations with the truck building company, which has plants in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. Employees of the Mercedes-Benz-owned company are asking for higher pay and cost-of-living adjustments. 

“Contract negotiations kicked off earlier this month, with the Daimler workers – who work in plants across North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia – demanding an agreement that reflects the record profits Daimler Truck has garnered and includes the long overdue fair wages and working conditions workers deserve,” the UAW said in a press release. 

The UAW says the workers, who build Freightliner trucks, Western Star trucks and Thomas Built Buses, are facing declining real wages as the cost of living increases. The UAW also says that over the past six years, “Daimler’s profits have increased by 90% while workers’ buying power has fallen 13%.”

Fain will be joined by the UAW Daimler Truck North America Bargaining Committee in his address. Daimler workers already voted by 96% to authorize a strike if necessary, so if the two sides can’t come to an agreement on a new contract withing the next few hours, thousands of employees across the South will walk out.

“We are currently engaged in good faith CBA negotiations with our UAW partners for a new contract that will benefit all parties and allow Daimler Truck North America to continue delivering the products that enable our customers to keep the world moving,” a spokesperson for Daimler said in a statement. 

But so far, negotiations have not gone well. The UAW filed four unfair labor practice charges against Daimler on Tuesday. The charges allege, among other things, that the company retaliated and discriminated against union members, interfered with workers’ right to organize and has not bargained with the UAW in good faith.

“Daimler Truck thinks it can intimidate us by trampling on our rights,” said UAW DTNA Council President Kenny Dellinger in a press release. “These unfair labor practice charges are a necessary step. It’s time for Daimler Truck to get serious about negotiating a record contract without violating the law.” 

All of this comes on the heels of a historic victory for the UAW. Workers from a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted to join the UAW last Friday, becoming the first Southern autoworkers outside of the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Stellantis) to win a union. 

North Carolina has the second lowest unionized rate in the country, followed closely by Georgia at sixth and Tennessee at 13th. 

Workers at Mercedes factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the 18th least unionized state, could become the next Southern factory to join the UAW. An election is set for May. 

Six Southern Republican governors, including Tennessee’s, Georgia’s and South Carolina’s, signed onto a statement on the eve of the union vote in Chattanooga, saying that unions would be a detriment to manufacturing in their states, and lead to job cuts. 

The UAW won 25% raises for autoworkers in Detroit last year. With cost of living increases, the raises will reach 33% by the end of those contracts.